Abstract

The cooperative organizations among farmers are viewed as contributory forces towards growth and development of Agricultural production in recent times. The cardinal objective was to assess such elements that enhance their performance. Both primary and secondary data were used for the study. The primary data were collected with the aid of structured questionnaire administered among 60 different registered farmers’ cooperative organizations in the study area. Data were analysed by employing descriptive statistics such as frequencies, mean, percentages and ordinary least square multiple regression. The study revealed that income generation, duration and years of cooperative experience, type of agricultural activities and quality of leadership were found to be significant at 0.01 alpha value while enrolment in terms of population size was found to be significant at 0.05 alpha value. Based on the findings, it was recommended among other things that agricultural policy makers and economic planners should take into cognizance the morale boosters for the cooperative organizations such as lowering interest rates on granting credit facilities, empowering the farmers’ cooperatives to perform through legislative control and adopting cooperatives as an effective strategy towards socio-economic transformation of the less-privileged and disadvantaged lagging areas and by so doing, it will assist in fostering regional balance in our developmental efforts.

Key words: Agriculture, cooperative, farming, organization, development.